5 Ways to Survive a Spender/Saver Union

By Diane McCurdy, C.F.P.

Are you in a spender/saver marriage?

Consider a typical day in the life of a couple with this kind of relationship:

Your husband spends the day with the kids and returns home with more new toys and children's clothing. He also informs you that they all had a lovely dinner out.

The kids, of course, had $8 chicken fingers even though there were perfectly good chicken fingers in your freezer. You cringe at the sight of the toys because you know that, after one or two uses, they will be laid aside and never touched again, except when you do the annual toy box purging. And while you think the clothes are adorable, your kids already have closets and drawers full of cute clothes that won't fit them in six months.

You would much rather put money into the kids' college funds and buy them special gifts a couple of times a year than throw the money away on every little toy, gadget or piece of clothing they want. Add to that your dismay, anxiety and growing resentment toward your spouse because he always gets to be "the good guy" - indulging the kids - while you toil away pinching pennies so they can go to college.

You both think that you're good parents, keeping your children's interests at heart. But when it comes to the money you spend on them - or on life, in general - you and your partner live on different planets.

Can you relate? If you're like many married folks with kids, you can. The spender/saver scenario can go either way - it could just as easily be the wife who prefers spending to saving money. But whether you're the scrooge or the spendthrift, you've almost certainly felt some "finance friction" in your relationship.

Our attitudes toward money are so deeply embedded that we tend to believe we are right and our partner is wrong. But having different attitudes doesn't make either one of you wrong. If more clashing couples tried to understand how their partner feels about money - not to mention explore the roots of their own attitudes - fewer would end up in divorce court.

In my work as a financial planner, I've identified four basic money attitudes:

ss="text1">Savers, and Spenders, as described above
ss="text1">Builders, who see money as a tool and use it (whether wisely or not) to turn their dreams into a reality; and


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